A sort of Homecoming
by electric caterpillar
Summary: The Room, postEileen; currently being reconstructed
1. time to go

R&R if you enjoy it ~~ concrit gratefully accepted but be gentle, please!  
I don't own SH, U2 or anything cool, really ='

**time to go**

* * *

Eileen wasn't there.

She was dead, he reminded himself. Extraneously.

She was juice.

Well, he thought savagely, who the hell was banging around in there upsetting her memory?

Something inanimate and unyielding - a cabinet or something - had been put down over Eileen's half of the peephole. The racket was apparently indefatigable, though, constant and disturbing - although maybe only in comparison to the age of silence he had become odiously accustomed to, defeated now by the unlikely Gilgamesh of the utterly pedestrian drone of adult male prole conversation, the crash and scrape of heavy indelicate furniture set and arranged and rearranged, shuffling, rustling, for hours an offense of a symphony, a victory he could not celebrate and a punishment he could not understand.

He really couldn't help himself, the temptation too great - he admonished the wall halfheartedly, knocking. He shouted hallo. Dishes clattered. There was no response of course. He shouldn't expect one any more.

The men were so close he could have reached out and shook one by the shoulders. Would they even sense him if he slapped one across the face?

He turned his back to the wall and slid to his haunches, sighing.

His pantry was running low. He'd have to venture to his outside soon...

Something shattered. A man blustered in brutish laughter. What did they think they were doing in there?

Oh, Eileen...

Eventually, the furniture was arranged to someone's satisfaction. Gentle twinkling knickknacks and the hushing of a broom and moving fabric, and Eileen's apartment quieted, and he realized with a start of pestilential self-loathing that he missed the grave tramplers, painfully, he missed them, people he hadn't seen and never would know and desired them with every molecule of him - like every novelty in his hell of tedium, now, every passing electrician and delinquent and potential tenant, he treasured them.

He curled in on himself on the compassionless cold floor. The flickering glimmer of half-departed candles giggled at him. Maybe they'd be called again, maybe they'd come back...

He slept.

He dreamed patterns.

* * *

He woke.

He realized, blanching, that whole days had been lost. The candles - what had been his sentinels - were reduced to blackened crushed cups at their posts. His temple throbbed in time with a hostile, barely audible, almost digital tone from the bedroom. He distinctly heard the violinish weeping of children.

With infinite weariness, he heaved loyal Despair over his shoulder.

He considered sticking it through his soft palette.

He sighed. He did that a lot lately.

He departed through the hole.

He must have been out longer than he thought. More than a week. It was not uncommon for his sleep to resemble small hibernations, now. Guilt over his indolence had been long abolished. What more important matters did he have to attend to? Paying the bills?

Besides, Walter didn't always think to infect his dreaming with this detestable other earth. In dreaming, he could imagine parts of himself he retained. He could see the outside.

In any case, the bounty of the building world was uncharacteristically generous.

The iron bell of Despair's head struck the ground with a dismal bark as he leaned it on its home, the foyer wall at the exact crown of the apartment. He arranged a tidy little surplus in their respective corner of the chest - his pantry.

On the desk adjacent to the useless front door, the kitchen island, the bookshelf, the coffee table, the television, on every available surface he set and lit new lovely pearl-white candles, bearing their little icons of obscure saints in the coffins of their precedents. He arranged effigies of the sad-eyed Saxon men and women on chains around them and around their sallow throats. The mewing of the non-children in the bedroom and the woeful presence in the walls diminished and died, repulsed by the contrived sacredness of his lights and jewelry. Real quiet reigned.

He sat back on the arm of the couch. He was so tired.

He was so tired.

He thought of himself pinned by his favorite weapon to the floor of this illegitimate dimension like one of the conquered ghosts, turning into flowers of decay and bones and dust, forgotten forever at the pit of a serial killer's pathology. Swallowed by Walter's mother.

Or he could shoot himself. He found bullets often and he could not resist hording them, for some fool reason, passing over the inoculations he desperately needed for the sake of some old violent human neurosis, for the revolting embryo in him he could not kill, the child he had been insisting that hope was not lost, that he could kill the Walter, he could get him back, he could get out, he could save Eileen ...

Yes, an archive of humane death patient in the chest. If he used a precious silver bullet he might not even return.

_something_

He stopped.

His breath and heartbeat, all presence of life left him.

Someone very soft and small, somewhere, was singing.

"Eileen?," he whispered, feeling a dampness begin at the corners of his eyes.

"Oh, tell me," the song replied, "shall we dance with me? Turn me around tonight..."

"Eileen?," the question was whimpering, now.

His knees gone from him, he crawled, genuflecting, to the peephole, the apparent source of the minuscule sound.

"Eileen. Eileen."

"...up from the spiral staircase to the higher ground.."

No one was there.

But he heard it. He had just heard it.

He was crazy.

The room - Eileen's room - was furnished now. The super had cleared it out after Eileen was confirmed dead. But there were things... there were posters on the wall, and a bed...

"Slideshow seaside town Coca Cola football radio radio radio radio radio radio - "

"Is someone there?" he pleaded.

The repetition stuttered and cut.

There was a long moment in which he imagined a reception.

"Eileen?"

Static.


	2. fields of morning

**fields of morning**

He slept and he woke.

No one sang anymore.

He labored over the peephole. It was an awfully ... frivolous room.

The angle of a desk or something did well obstructing his vision but he thought the bedspread might have had a pattern of traintracks and blue cabooses.

Maybe he was just crazy.

He stood at his window for a while. Had the town always been burdened with such dismal weather? Or was he seeing the outside through the filter of Walter's mother, making everything gray, everything old?

What a stupid question.

He looked around his kitchen. Mottled tiles. Bad smells. Water that could not be trusted.

The welcome a cockroach or rat would receive in this apartment!

He returned to the window. During thirteen steps he stared determinedly at his feet.

He couldn't spend his time looking into someone's room like some pervert.

It's not like anyone was really there. He shouldn't entertain Walter's cruelties. Crawling crying like an orphan into his lap to be ... He wouldn't play into his hand.

No one was there.

No one was there.

He found himself with his chin posed to peek over his shoulder. His jaw gritted to the point of pain. He wasn't going to look. What would he see? Water stains and scuff marks from where they had packed up Eileen's bed.

A cobweb, a memory, a mirror in limbo. A broken heart. No one was there.

He pounded his brow against the cold smoky glass with an enthusiasm that might have caused some kind of irreparable damage if he was still all of alive.

_No one was there._

He considered going into his bedroom, looking at his albums, but

... well, he could admit this to himself at least, he did not want to be out of earshot of the peephole.

He thought of the pistol, gleaming sleepily, deliverance drowsing dustlessly in his collection.

He thought of Eileen's mahogany hair.

He thought of the peephole.

No one was there.

Eileen.

He shot upright, embattled. No one was there, no one would ever be there again. No one was left to him in the world, because the sad situation was, he was not of the world any more.

He was doing a stupid thing, and a dangerous one, in deluding himself in this way. He might as well be bowing that homicidal son of a bitch in - clawing the walls, crying for the ghost of his friend - and doing so at an empty room across an indifferent dimension. He was inviting his own lunacy.

He wasn't going to kill himself.

His mouth turned like a dog's, utterly uncharacteristic. His shoulder went against the side drawers he had slid away those million years ago, he recalled so lucidly, not a week accustomed to hell, peeking around for a smile. It was heavier than he remembered. Like every item of his apartment, it smelled. It announced its indignation as he threw his overzealous weight upon it.

A tiny spot of alien color turned the moored gray of the peephole, a movement, and he started.

He could not help his instant of hesitation.

"Hi."

Henry couldn't speak.

"Are you my neighbor?," the boy asked genially.

Henry thought he may have ceased. He felt witness to something unutterable.

He was so small.

He was so, so small. He must have been four years old.

Oh, God. He was younger than Walter's avatar.

"Mr. Sunderland says," the boy paused to rub his nose with the back of his hand, "Mr. Sunderland says no one lives there. Are you a ghost?"

He sounded suspicious.

Henry could lift him in one arm. Curly-haired, with pony dapples on his cheeks, so sweet. Henry knew viscerally he would never see anything more beautiful.

"Hey," the boy demanded, "are you a ghost?"

"No," Henry choked, "No, I'm... I'm not exactly... I'm not a ghost."

"Would a ghost say he was a ghost?," he considered, sitting back on his hands. Henry saw he wore uniform, a jacket with a little tartan tie. He probably just got home from school. "Maybe you want to eat me."

"I won't eat you," Henry said thinly. He felt dizzy. A feverish lotus expanded in his chest. His cheeks panged unpleasantly and he realized he was grinning.

"Promise."

"I promise."

"Cross your heart."

Henry crossed his heart.

"Okay," the little boy nodded solemnly, and smiled. Henry wanted to cry.

"W-what," Henry swallowed, and shifted on his knees. "What are you doing in there?"

"Well," he looked bemused, "I live here."

"You live there?"

"We moved in here."

"We - your mom and dad are there?"

"I don't have a dad. What's your name?"

"What happened to him?"

"He's dead. What's your name?"

"It's Henry."

His unprolonged brow puckered. "Henry Townsend?"

"Yes. How did you know that?"

"Henry Townsend is dead. Robert says. You are a ghost."

"I'm not a ghost. What's your name?"

"I don't think I should talk to ghosts..."

"Don't go." Henry felt in him a glacial infection. To be alone again, suspended in this deathlessness... "Don't go. I'm not a ghost."

"'bye, Mr. Townsend."

"_Don't go_," Henry's voice split as he screamed, lunging and clutching. He beat the plaster. "Oh, God, don't go. Don't go. Don't go."

The boy looked incredulous. "Are you crying?"

"Don't go..." Henry pleaded. "Don't. Please don't."

"Don't cry," he murmured, abashed. "I'll stay a while if you want."

"Thank you," Henry breathed, leaning his sticky forehead on the wall, "oh, thank you..."

"You crossed your heart."

"I know. I won't eat you."

"Do it again."

Henry crossed his heart again, many times in rapid succession. The boy seemed pleased with his obedience, scooting back on his rump and folding brown fawn knees to his side. He wore long socks with two navy stripes at the calf, and no trousers. A well-loved teddy bear dithered close to his side.

"What's," Henry stuttered, and swallowed, "what's your name?"

"Atticus."

Henry grinned. "That's a grown up name for such a little boy."

"Ever'one calls me Atti."

"Atti," he acknowledged, nodding deeply and closing his eyes, basking. "Atti, where's your mom?"

"In the kitchen. Cooking."

"What's she making?"

"Spaghetti. Why?"

"Is she nice?"

"Guess so. She doesn't like me very much."

"Why would you say that?"

"S'true."

"I'm sure your mother loves you."

"Yeah. She says she does. Want spaghetti? I'll share."

"No thanks." It must have been a year since he'd eaten. "Who's that?"

"Who's who?" the boy - Atti, Henry extolled in his mind, Atticus - peeked curiously about him.

"Your friend," Henry gestured with his eyes.

"Oh," Atticus gathered up the threadbare familiar from his hip, clutching a ratted ear in a miniscule fist and squashing the teddy affectionately beneath his chin. "This is Scout. She's not a boy."

"A girl named Scout?"

"Her name is Jean Louise," Atticus recited, worrying a grayed paw in his glossy little mouth, "but she doesn't like it."

"Do you like your name?"

"It's okay," he said slowly, and twisting a loose thread on Scout's tummy, confessed, "It was my Dad's name."

"What happened to your Dad?"

Atticus was listening for something.

"Atti?"

"Okay!," he conceded away from Henry, to the door of his room, and turned back to face him. "I gotta go. Dinner's ready."

"What?"

"Dinner's ready. Bye."

"What? No. Don't..."

"Do you want to come over?"

"I can't. Don't go."

"I gotta. Mom'll get mad."

"Don't go."

"I'll be back later. Don't cry. Bye."

"Don't go. Atticus. Don't..."

Atticus was gone.

Henry made a sound that horrified him - a larval scream, burgeoning redly from the core of him, like a lamb losing its legs. He arched in a crucified caress against the wall. He tasted his stomach.

"Atticus. Atticus."

A door clicked heartlessly shut.

"_Atticus_."

No one was there.


	3. hunger for the time

thank you for your reviews, everyone! Even though you probably wrote them like two years ago, here are my responses :3

**awesome blossom** thank you very much! Desolation is really exactly what I was going for c:  
CORRECT! +1000 literacy points! Thank you very much for your review.

**murder junkie** I am too! Are we mean? D:  
OK BOSS! Thank you so much for your review!

**AnimeGirl** Thank you very much ~~ I will try to update soon.

**Murder Junkie** HE _ABSOLUTELY_ IS, HOW DID YOU KNOW? :{O

thank you very much for your advice. I agree. I am going through right now and cutting out a lot of the obnoxious prosiness and explaining things more concretely. I hope you like it.  
Thank you so much for your review and your very helpful criticism.

**Mantineus** Thank you very much! I hope to post a new chapter soon, I hope you like it!

**A/N**: I have mostly finished re-writing the chapters I already have - I might work on this a little more, I cleaned it up but it's still sort of abrupt, especially the end - and intend to come off hiatus starting tomorrow c: I hope to have a new chapter up by Wednesday.

I hope you all like it!

* * *

**hunger for the time**

"Henry?"

Henry was awake as high noon in an instant, swallowing his tears and hovering over the hole.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm here."

"You're there?"

"Yeah."

"Don't look, gross-o. I'm getting dressed."

"Oh, Atticus..."

"Are you looking?"

"Okay. I mean, no. I'm not. I'm looking away."

And he did, even though his ravenous loneliness twisted his guts and plucked his throat, serenaded by baby hiccups, dropped coins and jumbled toys and slipping cloths. Beautiful noise! He wanted to see him, to coronate him in his mind. The inarticulacy of tiny hands. The cherubic tip of chin. Lightless curls chiming. Dimples. Tummy-button. He wanted to hold him...

"Okay."

His pajamas were striped pastel green, with a cute cartoon frog posing on the pocket. They hung absurdly over his wrists like kimono sleeves and pooled around his turned-in toes.

"Are you going to sleep?"

"Yeah. I can stay up a while if I'm quiet. Don't cry."

"I won't. What time is it?"

"Bedtime."

"No, I mean - "

"Are you lonely?"

"What?"

"Are you lonely? Is that why you want me to talk to you so much?"

Henry was a little taken aback. What a strange kid.

"...yeah."

A tiny curl of finger, so perfectly small it could not have been truly human, rose from the peephole to beckon Henry.

"Don't be lonely, Henry, I'll be your friend."

Henry drew to the offering, visibly shaking. He lifted his own hands, stopped, lowered them, lowered his face, breath incredulous, and then he gathered it in both tremulous palms. It was uteral in temperature and pornographically soft.

"Thank you," he murmured, pressing the consoling geometer against the hollow beneath his lip, "thank you, Atticus."

"S'okay," the cherub demurred. "Don't be lonely."

"Thank you."

"I don't have any friends, either."

Henry had no words in him. He wanted, how he wanted, to possess the beckoning forever.

"I'm a faggot."

"Where did you hear that word?" Henry asked, heartbroken.

"Robert."

"Who's Robert?"

"Boy at school." Gruesomely unsentimental.

"Atticus, don't use that word."

"Why? That's what I am." The digit uncoiled and made to withdraw; Henry clutched it like a lifeline.

"Why would you think that?"

"Leggo. Gimme my hand back."

Henry feared Atticus's fear. He obeyed instantly and excruciatingly. He followed the exodus, forcing his cheek and the flats of his palm into the wall, closing distance by the molecule. It hurt.

"Don't use that word, Atticus," he said softly, eyes dipping, "You're not that."

"How do you know?"

"I know. That's a terrible word, no one is that. Don't use it anymore, okay?"

"Okay."

"Why is Robert so mean to you?" He touched the powdery rims of the pucker, wanting with all his heart. Atticus looked shy, holding long sleeves over his mouth and looking away from the peephole.

"'Cos he doesn't like me. 'Cos no one likes me. I'm that word I can't say."

"You're not, Atticus, I told you. Trust me."

"Okay," he said, sounding utterly unconvinced, and tucking Scout into the shallow of his pajama front to snuggle.

"What grade are you in?"

"Second," Atti proclaimed proudly, dropping his veil and smiling in a way Henry was sure was somehow dangerous. "Wanto see my report card?"

He scuffled around the Thomas the Train Engine backpack abandoned slipshod at the foot of the bed and resurfaced victorious, submitting a crumpled xerox sheet zealously to the peephole.

"An A+!" Henry proclaimed with hard but not insincere enthusiasm.

"Yeah," Atticus nodded, cheeks dusky and smile blinding, abashed of his conceit, "I study. I like to learn."

"Good boy," Henry praised, rubbing his cheek on the roughness like a contented mother cat and punctuating the hole with his fingertips.

"Do you go to school?"

He caged his laughter and spoke kindly, eager to spare his companion's feelings. "No. Not for a long time."

"Do you have a job?"

"I - yeah. I'm a photographer."

"I'm gonna be a conductor."

"Of musicians or electricity?"

"What?"

"Never mind," Henry felt his eyelashes bend against the linoleum as his smile turned his eyes up, "Of a big train? Will you carry people around?"

"Yeah. A bullet train. Or an X-Man."

Henry couldn't for the life of him restrain his mirth this time, but Atti was thankfully not insulted. He waited politely and as his neighbor had his raucous fit - he could not know that this was the first time Henry had laughed in years - head at an observant angle and fingers lacing patiently in his lap. It was a peculiarly adult posture that was no help to the elder's recovery. Plucking tears from his eyes he smiled at the recumbent boy.

"Who's your favorite X-men?"

The response was punctured with a politely smothered a yawn.

"Sleepy?"

Atti shook his head, enthusiastically at first but it faded as he succumbed a smidgen. He blinked slowly.

"Why don't you go to sleep?"

"Won't you be lonely?"

"No," Henry smiled, touched, "I won't be lonely. Is it okay with you if I just ... stay here a while?"

"Goodnight, Henry," Atticus beamed at him.

What hours exist but those informed? Henry could of watched the air in his curls and the porcelain of his murmuring breast for the rest of his life. The hour matured and glitter came forward in heaven, visible through the little boy's window, traffic sputtered and died, lights ended, the moon descended slowly into the horizon. Atticus could have been singing, he exhaled such beautiful ribbons of his tiny dreams. Henry was beyond tears.

He wouldn't let the world into the baby's room.


End file.
